Trump lost the debate, but that doesn't mean Harris won, says pollster Frank Luntz (youtube.com)
Niether candidate articulated at all anything they would do with the economy or inflation. Luntz also thinks Trump missed an opportunity. Trump lost, but Harris didn't win, said Luntz. Trump, presidential candidate and former president, stuck to his guns that immigrants were eating their pets. The press is going to eat him alive if he doesn't state that he made a mistake there, Luntz said. But not if you don't talk to centrist press or of coure not to D press.
Trump could have done inflaiton and immigration, the two issues that matters most to voters, and the number one priority of those voters in the swing states.
So here's how the DEBATE went. The mediators start of very directly, asking the question ‘most important to the US voters’ which is the economy, Mrs Harris do you think that when it comes to the economy, Americans are better off than they were four years ago? Harris smiling doesn't even attempt to answer this question and just says, ‘So I was raised as a middle class kid, and I am actually the only person who has a plan that is about lifting up the middle class and working people of America’ and immediately makes her promise to give money to certain voters. Give $6000 to people who have children and $50,000 to small businesses and $25,000 for first time home buyers (in the second half of the debate she restated this exact point as her ‘plan’). Why do mediators not cut people off immediately when they do this? It wasn't the question, and the answer was basically bribery. She speaks against tax benefits for billionaires. You could say she doesn't understand anything about politics, but maybe more likely it's irrelevant to her. It doesn't matter either way. D plan is to win the election, and then try to do what they want. Trumps rebuttal was good, mentioning that he did tariffs and they were effective so the Biden office kept them, but he had them without inflation, which the Biden office has inflation. She looks with a smug scowl and a head-shaking smile while he speaks. But then he went on to talk about immigrants ‘taking over towns’ and ‘destorying our country.'
She gets a little erratic-seeming by quesiton 2 or 3, getting so excited she doesn't speak clearly and gets flustered. She doesn't really seem like an adult in this debate. After midway when he challenges her on ‘hating’ Israel, she even sounded a little panicked or something.
She seems really to try to find people in the audience to feel like a victim and to view her opponent as the abuser or victimizer. And she dips into impassioned tones and dramatic gestures. I mean really this seems the predominant tactic to try to win the audience. Try to find victims and make them feel like a victim about something and focus on Trump as the person who harms them. She does a lot of non-information rhetoric. She also tends to work in little (without specific substance) accusations and attacks during her rhetoric, and I wondered if this was courtroom lawyering technique. She also uses, more than once in a short debate, very boring platitudes, like ‘we have so much more in common than what separates us’ and ‘let’s turn the page' and ‘let’s look forward' or ‘move forward’ from here, ‘a sense of optimism’ that she ‘believes in what we can do’. There was very little, so little, substance in many of her statements, it was like she wasn't in the right league, like she was doing basic campaign trail stuff where she just does rhetoric uninterupted.
In accent and gestures she comports a lot like Obama. Is this practiced? or were their parents born in the same states or something?
Several times the moderators ask her about what she would do about specific things, and she doesn't on any of these even try to give any answer at all, but talks about just ‘what should be done’ in very general terms. She didn't give any specific answers about anything she would do. Trump tackled every question for the quesiton it was, and stayed on point mostly, but he did stray off to bring up immigration and the border a couple or few times when it wasn't the quesiton at hand.
He called Ukraine ‘a war that’s dying to be settled.' Her eyes seemed to water a bit maybe when Trump spoke (passionately) about Ukraine and about the weakness of Biden.
He said Biden is the worst president in US history, but that he thinks Harris is worse. He said she is a ‘horrible negotiator’ and said that the invasion of Ukraine began 3 days after she went there to negotiate.
I don't think either won the question of Obamacare, but basically it seemed Trump came out stronger on most or all other questions, perhaps largely because Harris didn't answer any and he was very clear and sensible on many things and seemed sincere, whereas she seemed to not have the substance prepared to talk, and did some rhetoric and attacks.
I don't think Trump ‘lost’ the election at all, as all the headlines and commenters too said that he did. I think he was mature and did pretty well. I think Harris actually did ok, but didn't seem ready or competent to this type of position, she didn't seem large or capacious, and she didn't seem really prepared or genuine sometimes. She said a lot about what she would do but never said anything specific about how, and she did a lot of platitudes and victim or needy-person seeking and promises. I don't think Trump made any mistakes, really, except saying the dog-eating thing. Is that why that's the thing headlines and commenters like talking about? because it was the only real negative of his debate?
How can anyone who votes based on substance, on actual things, vote for someone who doesn't give any and avoids giving anything?
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It's possible that courtroom lawyer is not a good qualification to be president (specific, maybe, to our court culture). The lawyer makes their party the aggreived and asks a higher authority, the judge (or jury) for approval or for them to side with or sympathize with their party. A president is a leader of a team, basically, and there is no higher authority he appeals to, but must achieve approval/consensus/majority for the things he decides to do. He assessed what problems there are, what things are important to the citizens, and he makes plans and organizes momentum and effort along decided (his plans) channels. A lawyer is also somewhat removed from the people, often feeling he is separate from them as a competant, trained and educated expert and they know nothing he knows, and he does not ask their approval or listen to it, since he ‘knows better’ within the sphere of the game and probabilities for success, which is always his goal.
The president definitely does not pit one side of his team against another team (unless an international competition). He doesn't try to make one part of the team feel aggreived and want to take something from the other team. He doesn't take on goals that are not approved by the people. He also doesn't really waste time. He makes a plan, gets approval and tries to make everyone act towards those goals. A business manager or teacher might be alright, but very incomplete, training for this. A business manager in a capitalist culture would definitely have to round out his quarterbacking ability with ecological understanding and much broader sympathy than just his little corporation. A teacher would have to learn to force people to do things, and maybe more important to face realities and practicalities that teachers, being free to be intellectuals, often avoid.
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